HP Opal, the 7 Inch Tablet That Could’ve Been Great

People can’t seem to get over the whole HP thing, so the killed webOS and TouchPad made the product more popular than its maker could have ever imagined. And what about those devices that HP also had in the making? Stuff like the 4G TouchPad and the 7 inch Opal tablet…

A 7 inch HP slate crafted following the feedback of the people who praised or hated the TouchPad would have been great. Just look at how well the BlackBerry PlayBook was received, well not that well, but still better than the TouchPad. One might argue that it lacks contacts and email, but imagine a unit without being crippled by these aspects… The Opal would have been really great.

What’s really interesting is that gdgt.com is reporting that HP’s QA team had a production-ready model of the Opal tablet available and ready for debugging. Also, this model popped up at the FCC not so long ago, ready for AT&T release in 16GB and 32GB flavors as the TouchPad Go. I guess we’ll never get to know how the 7 inch unit feels in the hands of the consumer… which is really a pity, especially considering the fact that the 7 inch segment doesn’t really have a catchy product yet.